White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stirred a political storm on Monday after an online spat with Huffington Post journalist S.V. Dáte over President Donald Trump’s proposed summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting, which aims to explore pathways to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, is expected to be held in Budapest, though an official date has not been announced.
The controversy began when Dáte, a long-time critic of Trump, texted Leavitt seeking clarity on who chose the summit location. Leavitt’s curt reply — “Your mom did” — quickly went viral, drawing both laughter and condemnation across social media.
Dáte ‘A Left-Wing Activist, Not A Journalist’: Karoline Leavitt
Later, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), Leavitt defended her comment, calling Dáte “a left-wing activist, not a journalist.” She accused him of persistently sending politically loaded questions and pushing “Democrat talking points.” “Just take a look at his feed,” Leavitt wrote. “It reads like an anti-Trump personal diary. Activists pretending to be reporters harm journalism.”
Meanwhile, international attention remains fixed on the anticipated Trump-Putin summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would consider attending if invited but voiced concern over the choice of venue, pointing to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s pro-Moscow leanings and strained relations with Kyiv.
President Trump has repeatedly stated that resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict is one of his top foreign policy priorities. The planned meeting in Budapest is seen as a potential turning point in diplomatic efforts to bring the three-year war to an end, even as tensions over media conduct and political discourse continue to play out in Washington.